Bay City, MI news and local guide

Though Saginaw had the area's first non-Native settlement in 1819, larger ships had trouble reaching it in shallow water, and many pioneers moved downstream to Lower Saginaw, where deeper water favored shipping-based industry. When Bay County was organized in 1857 the community was placed in it and renamed Bay City, and the post office took the name on March 22, 1858. By 1860 it had about 2,000 people and several mills, and it was incorporated as a city in 1865. Lumbering, milling and shipbuilding brought rapid growth, and industrialists who floated logs down the Saginaw to their mills built fortunes and mansions, many now historic landmarks. In 1891 the land dealer Charles C. Fitzhugh Jr. and his wife, Jane, sold their homesite to the city for $8,500 for a city hall. Bay City lay only on the east bank of the river until it annexed West Bay City in 1905. The Defoe Shipbuilding Company, which closed on December 31, 1975, built destroyer escorts, guided missile destroyers and patrol craft for the U.S. Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. Sources Wikipedia: Bay City, Michigan